


it's all right, if you want to come back

by aisle_one



Series: After the Credits [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), SPECTRE (2015), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 23:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5473919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisle_one/pseuds/aisle_one
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Q wakes at the hospital room, his is the last face Q expects to see, but the one he has longed for the most.  </p><p>Prelude to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5454587">Interlude</a> and partially inspired by <a href="https://youtu.be/uQKjI6395iU">this song</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's all right, if you want to come back

When Q wakes at the hospital room, his is the last face Q expects to see, but the one he has longed for the most. 

He is unusually unkempt. Thick stubble peppers his jaw and his hair, grown longer, is greasy.

“007,” Q croaks, throat tight and raw. Bond props up his head, slips a straw between his lips. Q drinks slowly.

“Not anymore,” he says.

Q shakes his head. “We haven’t replaced the number.” A smile tugs at his lips. “I had voted to retire it.”

Bond grins. “For being MVA—MI6’s Most Valuable Asset?”

“Most Vexing Annoyance, rather. I had hoped it would end a tradition of unreturned equipment and general misbehavior, but—” Q lapses into silence when a vicious pain lances up his back. His eyes squeeze shut. When he opens them again, after what feels like an eternity, they are bleary with tears.

Bond’s face has gone grim. “You should rest. We can talk more later.”

Later, Bond is still there, hovering. Still there, the third time Q wakes, and after that. His is the first face Q sees each time and it becomes less and less surprising, gradually easing Q's fear, his panic, that he is merely dreaming or, worse yet, hallucinating while still bound and bloodied in the basement, or that Bond has left—again.

Q isn't and Bond doesn’t leave.

_

 

A week later, Q is told that he will be dismissed and is prescribed triple that time to fully recover. Bond is standing next to his bed, behind a wheelchair. He has volunteered to take Q home.

The nurse gives Bond instructions: 1) use a thirty milligram tablet of morphine for every one ounce of cream; 2) crush the tablet(s); 3) dissolve it (them) in the cream; and 4) apply as needed. 

She stresses the “as needed” part as crucial to preventing an addiction. Dutifully Bond nods, though when the nurse turns her back, Bond presses his lips together and shakes his head at Q. Not a chance. He won’t be stingy. Come the point of do or don’t, to cede or refuse, Bond will relent to Q. 

Q understands—it will be a favor repaid: for every gadget Q customized for Bond, for his reluctant and frequent disobedience at Bond’s insistence. And for that night Q found him in his darkened living room mere days after the former M’s death, nursing a head wound and a scotch. Bar fight was the reason he gave and Q asked no questions. 

Q’s stitching had been rudimentary. Nevertheless, a single night of nursing became two. Then it tripled. Then they multiplied--expanding to include quiet talks, chess, shared meals--and kept multiplying until they became numberless, Q losing count after awhile.

_

 

Bond kips on the sofa. That’s where Q finds him hours later as he is hobbling to the kitchen for a cup of tea. He is haggard looking even while obviously deep in rem and Q wonders just how long he went without sleep. 

His clumsy shuffling wakes Bond, who bolts upright immediately alert. He spies Q and his eyes narrow.

“What are you doing?” he demands.

“Walking,” Q says, “or trying to.” The ordinary task is requiring tremendous effort and he swears to never, ever again take his health for granted. (A promise he breaks the first week he returns to work and does a triple shift that leaves him dehydrated, bordering ill, and bad-tempered after M calls him into his office for an arse-chewing and forces him to take another three days leave.)

“You’re not supposed to be on your feet,” and as Bond says it he rises up on his. “What are you after?” Then he realizes Q is headed for the kitchen. His eyes roam there, taking inventory: cupboard, refrigerator, electric kettle. “I’ll get it for you.”

“I can do it.”

“Which is beside the point.” His gaze returns to Q and sweeps up and down his form. “You’re what? Ten stones soaking wet? Give or take?”

He was. Not now, not according to the skeletal twin that stares back at him from the mirror. But Bond’s charitable appraisal doesn’t go unnoticed, or unappreciated. “And?” 

“And I’ll carry you back if I have to.”

Bond means it. Another objecting word out of Q’s mouth and he’ll be swept up and off his feet literally. No thank you. He has had enough of being a damsel in distress that needs saving. 

“Fine,” he says, waving the white flap of his dressing gown. “I surrender.” 

The route back requires a slow turnaround—so slow that Q cannot help but catch the smug look on Bond’s face. Bastard.

And this is how Bond learns how Q takes his tea: two sugars and a splash of cream, then a splash more until the caramel color is just the right shade of light.

_

 

And this is how Q learns that Bond has gentle hands:

The pain is like a hot iron sizzling inside his spine, pressed to the nerves, and Q can’t help the chattering of his teeth. 

“Easy,” Bond says, applying a pressure that echoes the sentiment. His greased hands glide between the protruding knobs, light as a ballerina’s steps. Acutely attentive, they pause at each spasm or flinch. After the task is completed, they seek a neutral place on Q’s body and settle in the bend of Q’s neck. Bond massages there, rubbing soothingly, tenderly, until Q’s eyes lose their pinch and his breathing evens. 

_

 

Bond’s hands are also formidable—though this Q has known. He has seen, heard, what they are capable of. Anecdotal evidence a degree removed, and direct experience only confirms the myth. 

Herculean, Q might later describe them, though he is in the throes of agony, determined to wean off the morphine, when Bond lends him a hand to clutch and Q’s grip on it may very well have been feeble. Unpersuasive proof perhaps, but they infect Q with a tolerance he had not known he is capable of. Despite the temptation to flee the pain, Q stays with it, bears it, breathes through it, all the while anchored to Bond’s hand.

“I know. I know how much it hurts.” Of course—of course, he does. Bond’s free hand sweeps the sweat-drenched hair off Q’s face. Then in an impossibly kind voice, he says: “You can do it.”

_

 

In between, they observe the weather:

“Raining again.”

“And this surprises you?”

And bicker:

“I’m not surprised.”

“You sounded it.”

“It must be your hearing. They say it's the first to go, with old age.”

Sometimes, they watch telly.

“Doctor Who again?”

“I’m in charge of the remote, aren’t I?”

“When are you not?”

While Bond prepares their meals.

“Eat.”

 “I am.”

“Put more on your plate.” But Bond doesn’t actually wait for Q to do it. Instead, he proceeds to scoop up another ladle full of pasta and dumps it on top of the yet uneaten mound.

“I’ll have to be rolled back to the bedroom after this.”

“Happy to be at your service.”

After dinner, they play chess and Bond allows Q a limited nightcap. Too much might interfere with his medication. Q wins three matches in a row, and Bond is a poor loser. Dramatically, he sweeps the pieces off the board. But his bad mood is short-lived. It’s that or Q has gained a superpower while healing, because at Q’s unwavering glare and with nary a word, Bond stoops to the floor and picks them up. And because Q believes good behavior should be rewarded so as to encourage its repeat, Q throws the next game.

The pain is worst at night and Bond takes up reading to Q to distract him. With one hand he holds the book and with the other he holds Q’s. 

Bond recites: “Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.”

“Mmm,” Q says. “That first book is still my favorite.”

“So you told Moneypenny.”

“Who told you?”

Bond waves the book at Q as if to say _obviously_. He peers at Q. “You know, you're what I think a grown-up Harry Potter would look like. Scrawny. Impossible hair. Bottleneck frames. All that’s missing is the scar.”

“Oh, shut up,” Q says, smacking him on the chest. “And please do continue.”

So Bond does.

And later they kiss.

Finally, they kiss, and it feels like the end, like the period that finishes a sentence. Though the inhaled breath that follows, expanding Q’s lungs to capacity, marks another beginning.


End file.
